My New Year's Goals (Official)

One word.

Growth.

That was the only word that kept coming back to me when I asked myself to pick a “one-word theme” for the New Year. After reading Gretchen Rubin’s books on happiness and feeling oh-so inspired from all of her ambitious revelations, I decided to start the tradition of giving each year a theme.

Why growth? After reviewing all of my goals (from revamping my wardrobe to working overtime to starting web design school) they all seemed to relate to growth or progression. Without further ado, I’m going to share with you how I came up with my goals and what they consist of, broken down in life areas/categories.

The Process:

The first thing I did was reflect back on 2012 and took pride in what I actually accomplished. You can read about my accomplishments from 2012 here.

I thought about the wisdom I have gained from the previous year and made sure I was taking that into account while creating new goals. 

I then came up with a way to choose the right goals to help me prioritize all of my goals and eliminate ones that wasn’t going help me grow the way I want to grow this year. Finally, I categorized specific goals under a category to keep it well-balanced.

2013 Goals:

Family/Home:
-Try new activities together like Disneyland (coming up in just a few weeks; will write more about that later)
-Get familiarized with my Shutterfly account to create family photo albums at least twice this year
-Be a positive + strong female role model for Baby Girl
Career:
-Start Web Design school on 01/21/13 (already got the ball rolling!)
-Learn something new (outside of school material…such as Photoshop layering…creating a drop shadow…or html) - - as long it is web design related.
-Foster continued creativity through sites like Pinterest, inspiration boards, and bookmarking anything that speaks to me.

Blog:
-Create a new blog header
-Customize layout
-Get better at responding to comments
-Schedule blog posts in advance (preferably one month – that’s what I’ll aim for) instead of scrambling to post something on the very same day
-Create a monthly schedule (blog posts, commenting, relationship-building, etc)

Personal:
-Establish rules for my wardrobe ; if I haven’t worn it in 6 months, it’s going out (this rule won’t apply to formal wear)…more black and white clothes + splashes of color from my shoes and accessories…take better care of my clothes (+ that means actually making a trip to the dry cleaners instead of washing it normally and crossing my fingers it doesn’t shrink)
-Read at least one book each month (outside of school)
-Start writing for a book
-Update makeup collection (and tossing that too-bright turquoise eyeliner that makes me look like an alien) and continue to update every six months
-Create new folders in my email account. I’m tired of having everything being marked as important or not - - needs to be more specific.
-Update resume (this needs to be done at least twice a year!)

Health/Fitness:
-Take vitamins daily
-Complete a detox program such as this (insert link from Skinny Confidential)
-Figure out how to use the Gym Boss timer my brother got me for Christmas
-Run a mile in 10 minutes or less
-Try Crossfit once this year. And if I like it, I may increase that to two!

Relationships:
-Have a lunch/dinner with my brother at least once a month to catch up on life, be a mentor for him, and maintain our sibling friendship. We call those lunches or dinners “brother-sister” time.
-Go out and meet with old or new friends at least once a month (As of late, I’d rather curl up with my blanket and read a book accompanied with some tea - - but I realize that doesn’t help my social life…at all)
-Take my parents out to the movie theaters more often

Financial:
-By the end of year, have a specific dollar amount of money in my savings account by having monthly goals
-Find opportunities to save money like bringing lunch to work…reviewing my bank’s account history to double check unnecessary fees…overtime, overtime, overtime.

I truly believe by holding myself accountable to these goals will help me grow in a way that will make me proud, happy, and joyous. However, even if I struggle, don't accomplish everything on this list - - I promise not to beat myself up over it.

No matter the struggle, always get back up.